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popentertainment-interviews · 1 month

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JA Bayona and Enzo Vogrincic

Society of the Snow is One of the Most Harrowing films of All Time – and Chilling As Well by Brad Balfour

It’s an understatement to say that I’ve seen lots of films with varying degrees of frightening circumstances informing them. But Society of The Snow was one of the most harrowing – well deserving of award nominations, including the Oscar for Best International Feature. Though the film is fiction, it’s based on a true story and is done in such a way that you feel yourself actually experiencing the cold, anguish and pain as the story reveals itself.

In 1972, a Uruguayan rugby team chartered a flight to Chile, which catastrophically crashed on a glacier in the heart of the Andes. Of the 45 passengers on board, 29 survived the initial crash, although more would die from injury, disease, and an avalanche over the following weeks. Trapped in one of the most inaccessible and hostile environments on the planet, the survivors were forced to resort to survival cannibalism of those who had already died in order to stay alive. However, rather than turn against each other, the survivors drew upon the cooperative teamwork they learned through rugby, along with their spiritual faith, in order to escape the mountains. Only 16 of the 40 passengers ultimately survived.

Director JA Bayona discovered Pablo Vierci's 2009 account of the crash, La sociedad de la nieve, while conducting research for his 2012 film The Impossible. He bought the rights for the book when he finished filming that movie. Bayona recorded more than 100 hours of interviews with all of the living survivors. The cast is composed of Uruguayan and Argentine actors, most of whom are newcomers. The actors had contact with the survivors and the families of the victims.

Society of the Snow was the closing film at the 80th Venice International Film Festival, in an Out of Competition slot. It played in theaters in Uruguay, Spain and a limited run in the United States in December 2023, before streaming on Netflix in January 2024. Society of the Snow received positive reviews and won 12 awards including Best Picture and Best Director at the 38th Goya Awards and was nominated for Best International Feature Film, representing Spain, along with Best Makeup and Hairstyling at the 96th Academy Awards.

This Q&A with writer-director Bayona and star Enzo Vogrincic took place in front of an audience a few weeks before Oscar Night.

Society of the Snow was shot in sequence, which is so rare now. Also shooting on location with all the challenges. How important was it to you to have an Uruguayan voice to this film, this passion in your life for the last decade?

JA Bayona: This story is not only well-known in the Spanish-speaking world, but also [throughout] the whole world. There are many documentaries about it. There were two movies already done (ed note: Survive! in 1976 and Alive in 1993), so we had to do this one right. We spent the time, and we wanted to shoot in Spanish. There was no way to shoot this film in another language than Spanish with a Uruguayan accent, since it was based on a book by a Uruguayan author with a Uruguayan voice and a Uruguayan actor. It took us 10 years to find the financing, find a place where we were allowed to show up and believe in the film, and believe in the level of ambition we were looking for, again in Spanish. Once we knew the film was going to be done – actually before then – we did auditions for nine months, looking for the actors. I saw 2,000 self-made tapes, and from those, I started to choose faces and meet actors online, because it was during the pandemic. We finally got our cast. That was at the end of 2020. We did two months of rehearsals – which is a luxury – maybe seven weeks. Then, all the cast met the real people they were portraying or the families of the dead. Then we spent a very long shoot, 140 days, which was extraordinary. We created such a beautiful family. Everything that’s in front of the camera was real. The friendship, the love, the sense of camaraderie, and we were there with our cameras. We captured that.

Who was your continuity director? You've been recognized for makeup and hair. This was another-level continuity.

JA Bayona: I gave the actors a lot of space and freedom to improvise, because they were so well prepared. They spent two months in rehearsals, met the survivors, and read the book. They had all the information, and then they worked in similar conditions, with a context that was constantly stimulating the performance. There was a lot of space to improvise. We shot 600 hours of material. The heroes of this film are the editors because they had to deal with that. There were a lot of continuity issues that we had to deal with in the editorial.

Enzo, when it comes to rehabilitation in the hospital, the showers, the emaciated bodies – and being a 2024 film realist – it wasn’t body doubles. Your body weight went from 159 to 103 during the shooting of this film. That was real. How important was it for you, for the living and the dead, to honor your character?

Enzo Vogrincic: While we were making the film, as actors, we always thought we owed the people that survived and those that died, to tell their story as realistically as possible. Therefore, when we were filming things such as hunger or cold, we were barely able to move. It was a way of replicating what they had gone through, beyond our acting, because we knew that we had a responsibility to the people and to the characters. This was not a typical shoot whatsoever. It was part of the story, so fundamentally, we were willing to do whatever it took to get that realism in. After putting in 12 hours of filming and besides, we were eating very little, we found that we could set up a gym afterwards. At night, those of us who were not filming, we were training and continuing to lose weight.

How important was it to you that this project be delivered in a Uruguayan voice?

Enzo Vogrincic: This is something that was fundamental to us because this story has been told before, but not with our voice. I thought that was the key thing to do because – though some theories say we are human regardless of where we took place – but these were the stories lived and survived by actual Uruguayans. We thought that to be able to tell it in the original language, it was important for us to understand the tales of the survivors so we could tell the story better. There were terms, feelings, and all those things which mattered, because it hadn’t been done that way before.

There were scenes that involved faith, the notion of a higher power, permission from God. On the other hand, what kind of God would allow this? Those scenes were directed with great care. Tell us how you approached that?

JA Bayona: I always try to be as close as possible to the characters, to the reality, in order to be able to capture them with a sense of authenticity, a sense of place, of being there. These guys were, most of them, very religious. There was a lot of religious iconography. I like to think the film tries to be more spiritual than religious. I see these people like orphans, abandoned in a place where life is not possible, and they need to reinvent life. They need to, somehow, reconsider what is important and what is not, as human beings.

By doing so, the movie becomes a mirror of ourselves. They had to start everything from scratch. They were abandoned by the authorities, they were abandoned by their families, so they had to. For them, it was a journey of self-discovery. It was also a way of understanding that God was everywhere, in order to survive. There was not a religious institution in the middle.

When we mention cannibalism, when we talk about it, that's a word they don't like to use. I think this film makes a big change; in that it's not about taking. It's about giving, about giving yourself to others and suffering the same pain that they are suffering. By doing that, feeling empathy …understanding that you and the other person in front of you are really the same. It's like when Gustavo Zerbino told Roberto Canessa, "You have the strongest legs, you need to walk for us." [And he did just that, walking out from the crash down the mountain towards civilization until they were found, which saved everyone who remained.]

There's an immediate realization that you and the other ones are the same. We are all the same. To me, that feels sacred, spiritual and transcendent. To understand that we are all part of the same thing. That resonates in the world we live in right now, especially with young people. We are surrounded by so much conflict, and finally having this story that tells you that we are all part of the same thing, that we are all aboard the same plane. We need to come together to find a solution. We had such an important message. That was our fuel.

With today's GPS, the flight would have landed at its destination safely, one would hope. You had to get the technical details right. The formal report said it was pilot error. That's clear from your work. How challenging was that, starting with your visit to the crash site?

JA Bayona: We had to give the context to make others understand what they went through, and by doing so, what they did. We put so much effort into all the details, like talking about the type of plane. We went to the Uruguayan Army. We had a very honest conversation with them. They accepted that it was human error. But it was actually a combination of human error with some kind of an early model of GPS that failed that day. They basically had to do this turn there because that kind of plane was not able to fly at 40,000 feet. So they had to go through a lower pass. They had to do this kind of U-turn. It takes 20 minutes to get from one side to the other. They turned to the right only when they were six minutes into it. That's why it's considered to be a human error because there was no way that the pilot didn't know that. The pilot had done that journey many times. But we really don't know what happened in that cockpit. I decided to leave the camera outside of the cockpit out of respect for the pilots. We knew that there was a machine that failed there. But anyway, we decided out of respect not to get into that space, so we stayed with the other characters.

Will your life ever be quite the same after the experience of filming this movie?

Enzo Vogrincic: In life, everything you do changes you. You're never the same after an experience this informative. Of course, I’ve changed. I am different. I like to take every opportunity to continue changing myself. The biggest changes were on a professional level and in terms of how much I learned. I had to go in depth into my character and we spent one to three years with those people talking about life, death, friendship, love, family and making friends. I've made 25 new friends and therefore I like to think that I did change.

Talk about your immersion in your new extended family. The family of the living and the family of the dead.

JA Bayona: I sent an email to the survivors in 2011 and in that first email, I already sent a line about Roberto Canessa that said, “Talking to the dead, accepting peace, gives us the chance to live other lives we didn't have the chance to live.” I was very struck by that conversation between the living and the dead and that sense of depth towards the dead. The more I was in contact with the survivors and the more we talked, the more I realized that they needed the film to be completed and released even more than I did.

My big question was what was left to say after so many documentaries, books, and movies. Now I realize, after seeing the film with them, that it was not about telling something that wasn't being told yet. It was more about giving them the chance to say thank you to people who’d been so important. I see how it was like a poetic thing, the fact that people who didn't make it, they gave everything they had for these people to be alive. Now they are using their testimony to bring these people back, to keep them alive again on the screen. By doing so, I realized that they were comfortable with the story. So it was more about giving these folks a chance to say “thank you” to those who had helped while capturing the mood, feelings and context of what they had gone through so that people seeing the movie would understand what had happened.

In the hands of another director, the debate over sheer survival might not have been handled as beautifully as it was with you. There's a line in the script where Enzo’s character says, “What was once unthinkable became routine." As the black & white photos are being taken, there's a shot showing a human rib cage in the background, almost cavalierly, but it mostly was kept out of the photos. The pictures, of course, are still with us today. They're on the web for people to see. You've managed to take on such a life-and-death topic and deal with it matter-of-factly but with great respect and discretion.

JA Bayona: I'm so glad that you asked about that “unthinkable” line because that's life. That's life. First, you do what you think is impossible, then you get used to it, and then there's a moment that you don't pay attention to it. Our ordinary lives are about that. These people remind us how important every single detail is in our lives. It doesn't matter if your skin is black or white or if we’re American or Spanish. We each have our chance to live life. But when you meet these guys, you meet people who’ve been given an extra chance. That makes a big difference. Their story helps us realize that sometimes we complain and don’t appreciate what we have, the fact that we do have lives to live.

How cold did it get? At what altitude did most of the filming take place?

Enzo Vogrincic: Well, I have to admit, it was hard to tell this story. You feel you have to go through the pain yourself, in order to tell it well. The shooting was hard, obviously, because you have to connect the pain with your own body. We had to lose weight and experience the cold. You have to do it until your body becomes part of that character’s story. There were experiences that allowed us to feel the pain. We were able to work less on certain things and still retain the emotional tone of the story. The emotions didn’t take over necessarily when your body had to suffer. There were other important components, too, in addition to the pain and the suffering. You were able to see that you had a duty to carry out which took you beyond the pain, because you had a story to tell in a competent way.

JA Bayona: Let me add one story. Enzo did such an extraordinary job. He was so committed to the performance of Numa that when we finished the shoot we had to go back to the Andes because the first time we went, there had been very little snow because of global climate change. We went for one year. Once we finished the shoot, we went back to shoot again in the background. Secretly he was in Uruguay, and I called Enzo and said, “What are you doing next Wednesday?” He said, “Nothing.” I said, “I want to take you to the actual place where the plane crashed. I don't have permission from the other producers, but I think I can manage to bring you there. How much is the ticket?” He said, "$400.” I said, “Well, we can pay $400. I can talk with the insurance company and the professional drivers.”

I secretly took Enzo finally with the blessings from the other producers just because he did so much. We had this shoot then we had the person in Germany that was to do this film. I really wanted Enzo to be there and be able to shoot some shots that were very helpful for the film. You can treat the audience by putting in a couple of shots of Enzo there and there. At the same time, Enzo had a closure to that journey. He was able to do these shots but was also able to stand in front of the great theater. I don't know what you said there, what you did there, but you had your moment there. To me that was very important. When you do a film, the whole atmosphere affects the final result. I pay attention to these kinds of details. Also, I wanted him to be there and have that closure.

Having just shared this in a theater, I know that’s what movies are designed for, communal viewing experience. But when someone watches your movie on a streaming device. How does it affect you? And to be honest, can you interpret it for any language that it needs to be interpreted for?

JA Bayona: Can we take the Netflix people out of the room for a second? No, listen, we spent 10 years trying to make the financing for this film. We tried to do this film by conventional windows to the cinemas. Apparently, there is no market for Spanish films that are over $10 or $15 million in budget. We couldn't do this film with that budget. We spent 10 years and when we were about to give up, Netflix showed up and put in the money and gave us the freedom. They made the film possible.

At the same time, I come from Spain. To me, it's more difficult to handle the market in the US than in Spain. I'm quite popular there. We released the film on December 22nd. It was a limited release, 100 cinemas. Normally one of my films would be in 500 cinemas. We released the film in 100 cinemas. I decided to go with the film. Every week, I went to a different city and showed the film. The film is still in the cinemas, in the same number of cinemas. We've done 100 million admissions. The film actually is doing better since it's on Netflix. I'm very happy that Netflix made the film possible and made it accessible to the whole planet. We had 100 million people watching the film in the first 10 days. So it’s not true. There is a market for Spanish films. But I'm glad that the movie is still in theaters for people who want to see it there.

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#JA Bayona #Enzo Vogrincic #2024 #Interviews #Season of the Snow #Brad Balfour #Youtube

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popentertainmentconcertreviews · 2 years

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Randy Edelman – City Winery – New York, NY – August 28, 2022

Composer/Singer/Songwriter Randy Edelman Performed Heartfelt Compositions at City Winery Offering a Preview of His Shows to Come in December Along with Randy Newman, Paul Williams and Van Dyke Parks, among others, pop singer/songwriter Randy Edelman has established himself as a member of the snarky, eccentric songster sub-genre. The 75-year-old tells tales of failed love, unresolved relationships and unfulfilled dreams. Yet through it all, he sings of hope for the future. Edelman recently scored the upcoming film Skelly with Brian Cox (Succession) and the demonic thriller The Beast Inside. For the first time, Sony Classical has issued Pink Slime vinyl, digi- and CD versions of his classic score to Ghostbusters II. New Edelman songs for the musical Shortcut are now available. And Post-covid, the single "Comin' Out The Other Side" is out on Tribeca Records. Along the way, Edelman has made visits to this town, gracing audiences with his uniquely crafted song stylizations and performances. Thanks to a surprise invite last August, I experienced his most recent NYC excursion. Gigging at the relaunched City Winery, relocated at Pier 57 on the city’s far westside, this fabulous space provided the ideal environment for getting close and personal to such a musical talent. I had seen him before and every time I did, his performance just deepened the experience. Thankfully, there won’t be such a gap between Edelman's last session and his next shows here. They’ve been booked in December, right before Christmas, at two other fine venues – Don’t Tell Mama (10 pm, Dec. 22) and Chelsea Table + Stage (9 pm, Dec. 23) where I had first seen him maybe a year ago. Tickling the keys throughout the Pier 57 show, Edelman displayed a low-keyed pride in his achievements while rattling off historic details. The Teaneck, New Jersey native is a fine-honed songwriter/vocalist whose quirky tunes have a commercial tinge while being fatalistically romantic. As a young boy, Edelman transcribed sounds into piano pieces. As he aged into college, he turned from pre-med to studying piano and composition at the Cincinnati Music Conservatory. He then jump-started his career with an arranging assignment at James Brown’s Cincinnati-based King Records. By 1970, Edelman had relocated to NYC becoming a CBS Records staff writer while playing piano in Broadway orchestras. Randy also began writing and recording his own LPs granting him an audience and a spot on “Top of the Pops.” Then a move to L.A. led him to make several albums. A myriad of artists started covering his originals. Examples: “Weekend in New England” (Barry Manilow), “I Can't Make Music” (The Carpenters), and “My Place” (Nelly) which reached Number 1 on the Billboard Hip Hop charts. Other tracks that have been covered include “Down in the Everglades” (Willie Nelson), “Isn’t it a Shame” (Patti LaBelle), “If Love is Real” (Olivia Newton-John), “Blue Street” (Blood, Sweat & Tears) and Royal Philharmonic’s “Grey.” Additionally, Edelman has opened live in huge arenas for such icons as Frank Zappa and The Carpenters.

Which brings us back to that recent performance. Alternating his patter between self-effacing humor and snarkiness, Edelman sat at the piano as if there were no other place he’d rather be. He opened the show with his forceful yet plaintive tune, “Don’t Forsake Me Now” which tells a story of travel and time. Nice descriptions driven by the pulse of the piano and capturing grit in just a phrase. Next, Edelman followed that one with “The Farmer,” the opening cut from his first album of 50 years ago. A fine composition which encapsulates a feeling of loss, its rich cascade of piano chords drives his point home. Edelman then related a story about two kids who heard his album and took him on tour. That brother/sister duo, The Carpenters, loved a song of his, “You,” so much that they recorded it, becoming a hit for them. Edelman’s version is singularly touching, thanks to his emotive piano playing. After beginning with songs that convey such an air of innocence, his next tune more cynically tells of a downtown guy who finds his uptown woman. It turns into a story of a doomed relationship, flawed but hard to let go of. As Randy sings, he leaves his “Uptown, up-tempo woman” because he’s just a “Downtown, downbeat guy.” Then Edelman told of going back in the day to the offices of song publishers on West 56th Street. While schlepping his songs around, he met a guy who had worked with Joan Rivers and had a close relationship with Clive Davis. As Edelman noted, although the song was in 3/4 waltz time (which no one seemed to think would work), it got sent over to that guy, Barry Manilow, and was perfect for him. His hit, “Weekend in New England,” was a tune of yearning, about the pain of love and the need that goes along with it. Surprisingly, Edelman next performed a cover — Unit 4+2’s 1965 hit, “Concrete and Clay.” A classic ‘60s pop tune not often heard, it’s likely been an influence on Edelman’s composing style. With a sweet-as-roses feeling, it’s romantic and tender but with an edge. From this set of tunes Edelman turned to performing, strictly on piano, his comedy movie medley which demonstrated another striking element of his career. Besides song-smithing, he’s a remarkably successful composer of symphonic soundtracks and other cinematic compositions. Edelman has been creating many of the world’s best known soundtracks such as Ghostbusters II, 27 Dresses, While You Were Sleeping, The Last of the Mohicans, Kindergarten Cop, XXX, Twins, My Cousin Vinny, The Mask, Beethoven, Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story, Anaconda, Mummy 3, Billy Madison, Leap Year, EdTV and an array of others. In addition, he’s scored numerous TV shows and series including MacGyver, Mr. Sunshine, Netflix’s Backdraft 2 and HBO’s Citizen X. He’s also written music for HBO’s NASA’s final shuttle launch Dare Mighty Things, ESPN’s Wimbledon, Grand Slam Tennis Series, ESPN Sports Century and even NBC’s on-air Olympic theme. After a few more songs, the busy-haired pianist performed another instrumental medley – this time, of his adventure films scores. Again, they demonstrated his composing power. Tight and driven by a broad melodic range, he illustrated why he’s been so successful at getting on-going scores. Aside from Edelman’s skill at crafting and orchestrating cinematic compositions, his song set demonstrated a sweep that displays a cinematic narrative. As he wound down his show with a few other tunes, he did another cover – of the classic “Mack The Knife” – that further illustrated his unique flair. Despite having presented a show loaded with a range of moods and styles, the entire playlist fell under the distinct banner of “An Evening with Randy Edelman.” For a discography and other details, check out: randyedelman.com For details on his up-coming shows go to: www.donttellmamanyc.com www.chelseatableandstage.com

Brad Balfour

#Randy Edelman #2022 #Concert Reviews #City Winery #New York #Brad Balfour

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popentertainmentmusic · 2 years

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HALLELUJAH: LEONARD COHEN, A JOURNEY, A SONG (2022)

Featuring Brandi Carlile, Eric Church, Judy Collins, Sharon Robinson, Regina Spektor, Rufus Wainwright, Nancy Bacal, Steve Berkowitz, Adrienne Clarkson, Clive Davis, Shayne Doyle, Susan Feldman, Rabbi Mordecai Finley, Glen Hansard, Dominique Issermann, Vicky Jenson, Myles Kennedy, John Lissauer, Janine Dreyer Nichols, Amanda Palmer, Larry 'Ratso' Sloman, Joan Wasser, Hal Willner and archival footage of Leonard Cohen, John Cale, Bob Dylan and Jeff Buckley.

Directed by Daniel Geller and Dayna Goldfine.

Distributed by Sony Pictures Classics. 115 minutes. Rated PG-13.

The Documentary Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, A Journey, A Song Celebrates The Late Singer/Songwriter’s Poetic Hit

I’ll admit it. It wasn’t until the 82-year-old Leonard Cohen had died in 2016 (November 7th) did I really start paying attention to the fantastic quality of his music and lyrics. There were songs and albums that I acknowledged but, somehow, I didn’t quite get the body and breadth of this Canadian Jewish poet. The richness of his songs and the substance of his lyrics hadn’t fully caught my attention until after his death.

I never made it to a concert nor had an opportunity to interview him. I only encountered him tangentially. There was an interactive exhibit dedicated to Cohen’s life and career which opened on November 9, 2017, at Montreal's contemporary art museum (MAC) entitled "Leonard Cohen: Une Brèche en Toute Chose/A Crack in Everything.” The exhibit had been in the works for several years prior to the Montreal born artist’s death, part of the official program of Montreal's 375th anniversary. It broke museum's attendance records in its five-month run. Then it embarked on an international tour, opening in New York City at the Jewish Museum in April 2019 — and I saw it shortly before it left NYC spending hours there.

Thanks to guitarist/sound stylist Gary Lucas, I came to understand Cohen’s impact on other musicians. Lucas often spoke of the late Jeff Buckley —his former collaborator and one-time band mate. They worked on some songs together that appeared on Grace, Buckley’s one full studio-produced release. And the singer/songwriter really got established posthumously through a powerful and touching rendition of “Hallelujah,” Cohen’s most enduring song.

I had listened to Buckley’s version numerous times and, though I appreciated his heartfelt rendition, I didn't realize the huge back story to that song. Originally released on Various Positions — Cohen’s 1984 album — “Hallelujah” achieved little initial success. Then it developed a growing audience after achieving popular and critical acclaim through a version recorded by former Velvet Underground founder John Cale in 1991 for I'm Your Fan, a Cohen tribute album. That inspired Buckley to record his version of Cale's take in 1994.

I knew of author Alan Light’s 2012 book, The Holy Or the Broken: Leonard Cohen, Jeff Buckley, and the Unlikely Ascent of ‘Hallelujah.’ But it wasn’t until I recently saw ‘Hallelujah:’ Leonard Cohen, A Journey, A Song at the Walter Reade Theater (part of Film at Lincoln Center), that I came to understand what I’d been missing. Building on Light’s book, the feature doc spotlights Cohen in a way that offers a perspective on an artist who in many ways was as creatively significant as Nobel Prize winner Bob Dylan (who did a live version of the song himself and was friends with Cohen). As Light said somewhere, Cohen's "approach to language and craft felt unlike the work of anybody else. The sound was rooted in poetry and literature because he studied as a poet and a novelist first."

Cohen kept changing the song, eventually crafting as many as 180 possible verses to choose from, recorded several iterations (some more sexually suggestive than others) and performed variations of it live. After an edited version of Cale’s take was featured in the 2001 film Shrek, it landed on the multi-platinum-selling soundtrack release. Many other arrangements of “Hallelujah” have been performed in recordings and in concert, with over 300 versions known. The song has since been used in other film and television soundtracks and televised talent contests such as American Idol. Following Cohen's death in November 2016, “Hallelujah” enjoyed renewed interest. It appeared on many international singles charts and entered the American Billboard Hot 100 for the first time.

But the film — directed by Daniel Geller and Dayna Goldfire — is much more than simply detailing the evolution of the song and Various Positions — the album it first appeared on. Cohen’s seventh studio album was released in December 1984 (and February 1985) and marked not only his turn to a more modern sound with synthesizers, but also featured Jennifer Warnes’ harmonies and backing vocals — she’s credited equally to Cohen as vocalist on all of the tracks.

Produced by John Lissauer, the album was a glistening display of Cohen at his basic best after having done 1977's Death of a Ladies' Man, an over-produced recording with Phil Spector (Mr. Wall of Sound). Although it featured a more contemporary approach compared with the singer's previous LPs, Columbia President Walter Yetnikoff didn’t think it was commercial enough and refused to release it in the States. That stuck in Cohen’s craw and affected his work for a long time.

All of this and much more is effectively detailed in the film. Interviews with those who knew him well such as Judy Collins (who popularized him through her 1966 cover of “Suzanne”) pop music chronicler Larry “Ratso” Sloman, Lissauer and others help establish who Cohen was and what informed his work such as his observant Jewish roots and the many women he had been with.

Said one of the film's co-creators in an interview, “Cohen addressed the deepest of our human concerns about longing for connection and some sort of hope, transcendence and acknowledgment of the difficulties of life."

As docs go, this one really does the job. While focused on the song as a doorway into who Cohen was, it sets us up for a fully realized story about an important creator.

Brad Balfour

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#Leonard Cohen #2022 #Music Reviews #Hallelujah #Brad Balfour

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colleendoran · 1 year

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From the MOCCA exhibit and lecture, with Society of Illustrators museum curator Kim Munson in foreground. Photo courtesy Brad Balfour.

Neil in the middle and me at right. In case you couldn't tell.

What a day. It had been over ten years since I last saw Neil. I got weepy.

#neilgaiman #neil gaiman #society of illustrators #mocca2023 #mocca #kim munson #comic art in museums

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brookstonalmanac · 2 years

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Birthdays 7.25

Beer Birthdays

Paul Gatza (1964)

Vinnie Cilurzo (1970)

Five Favorite Birthdays

Anthony Bourdain; chef, television host (1956)

Walter Brennan; actor (1894)

Don Ellis; jazz trumpeter, bandleader (1934)

Matt LeBlanc; actor (1967)

Maxfield Parrish; artist (1870)

Famous Birthdays

Arthur James Balfour; British PM (1848)

Louise Brown; 1st test-tube baby (1978)

Manuel Charlton; rock guitarist (1941)

Illeana Douglas; actor (1965)

Thomas Eakins; artist (1844)

Jane Frank; artist (1918)

Estelle Getty; actor (1923)

Steve Goodman; folk singer (1948)

Barbara Harris; actor (1935)

Johnny Hodges; saxophonist (1907)

Eric Hoffer; philosopher (1902)

Iman; model (1955)

Thurston Moore; rock guitarist (1958)

Tera Patrick; porn actor (1976)

Walter Payton; Chicago Bears RB (1954)

Yvonne Printemps; French singer, actor (1895)

Brad Renfro; actor (1982)

#Birthdays

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adamwatchesmovies · 4 months

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Backcountry (2014)

Backcountry utilizes its simple concept to its fullest potential. It’s well-acted, and tense - the kind of film that’ll have you cancelling your camping trip if you watch it before the long weekend.

Alex (Jeff Roop) and his girlfriend Jen (Missy Peregrym) leave the city to go camping in the Canadian wilderness. After an awkward encounter with another camper (Eric Balfour as Brad), their trip goes from bad to worse.

The poster for this film by Adam MacDonald - who performs double-duty as the writer/director - prominently features a bear. If that’s what you’re coming to see, you’ll be disappointed. There is a hungry black bear in this movie and the animal is terrifying when it arrives. It’s just that the bear is exactly what it is: a bear. This is not the kind of movie where the couple we follow are relentlessly pursued by an animal with unnatural intelligence hellbent on getting revenge because they hurt its young or trampled into its territory unannounced kind of thing. Alex and Jen encounter and fear the bear because a bear is the last thing you’d want to encounter on a camping trip, and this movie is all about the worst thing happening over and over.

Backcountry is effective because everyone who’s ever wandered into the woods on a hike or gone on a camping trip has thought about the scenarios it presents. Losing your way, encountering something (or someone) dangerous in the middle of nowhere, running out of food, of water, becoming injured somewhere remote and having to deal with it yourself… those fears are all here. If that’s too specific to the outdoors, how about the fear of taking your significant other on what should be a romantic weekend, only to make a complete fool or yourself and unwittingly causing your relationship's demise? What I’m trying to say is that the film has a universal quality. When you think someone is doing something because they’re a dumb horror movie character, the film will reveal a detail about them and you’ll realize they’re just a regular person stuck in the worst moment of their life. Backcountry could happen to anybody.

There isn’t a lot of gore/violence in Backcountry but when it comes, it’s with an intensity that’ll have you reeling. That creeping dread you have, that unease as you, Alex and Jen realize what they’ve stumbled in? It isn’t unfounded. The strong performances from Missy Peregrym and Jeff Roop make everything you see feel real. This is a strong debut for Adam MacDonald. (September 3, 2021)

#Backcountry #movies #films #movie reviews #film reviews #canadian movies #canadian films #adam macdonald #missy peregrym #jeff roop #eric balfour #nicholas campbell #2015 movies #2015 films

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doubleboot5 · 2 years

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The 5 Hd Sports Packages Every Bar Owner Should Have

Strengths: Inadequate results . that really are a few all varieties of high desires for this starting rotation in 2011, however the real reason why this team is in order to be succeed yr is its bullpen. Andrew Bailey and Brad Ziegler were great last season, and now added towards bunch are Brian Fuentes and Grant Balfour, which have had amazing seasons over the course of the past few years. Sure, these most likely moves which didn't pop up banner on the radar of this of the offseason, but you are big moves that should help the A's nail down more games late on. Fighting takes place in major league clubhouses often, yet it rarely, if ever, hits the media in smaller market teams. Detroit last year had some blunders in last year's World Series, the biggest baseball stage in the world, yet less Tigers jerseys bought than Cubs jerseys, the actual story gets buried under the media muck and mire. New York Yankees (28-23) - The actual York Yankees are the top scoring team in the American League; with 264 runs. The Yankees avoided the sweep at the hands among the Seattle Mariners with victory on Saturday. The Yankees are experiencing second area in the American League East; behind the Boston Red Sox. Curtis Granderson has been the key for New York, with a.282 batting average, 16 homeruns and 37 runs batted in. The Yankees pitching has been anchored via six wins from 3.C. Sabathia and a period under 5. Shortstop: Despite the National League going for a talent rich class of shortstops this season, the American League still has plenty supply. New York's Derek Jeter (.343, 3 HR, 28 RBI) leads the voting by extra than 400,000 votes and is going to also not transform. Baltimore's Miguel Tejada (.317, 5 HR, 27 RBI) completes the Orioles great middle-infield, but his power numbers are not likely his career high of 34 home runs in 2002 and 2004. Carlos Guillen (.317, 6 HR, 37 RBI) has been rock solid for Detroit this season, but just went down with a groin strain, which hurts his chances if he misses a few games. The Marlins have held their own recently contrary to the Phillies in mlb wagering. They had won 11 of the last 20 against Philadelphia before series rolling. They claimed two of three at Philadelphia the 2009 season. The Phillies are one of those teams in baseball which could play just like nicely along the road as at home so supply be overvalued at home. The previous five meetings between 2 teams went under fundamental before this series was created. MLB tryouts are usually slated to begin at 9:00 AM, but hopefuls are asked to appear a 30 minutes early. When you get to the park, the primary order of business is completing a registration card. You'll find a number on this card, decided by your position; for example, pitchers may be numbered 101, 102, 103, etc. That number will be the you will be addressed and identified for the remainder of the ceremony.

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recessscene3 · 2 years

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The Number One Way November 23 Guarantee When Betting On Sports

Strengths: Problems that there are all types of high hopes for this starting rotation in 2011, however the real believe this team is for you to succeed this year is its bullpen. Andrew Bailey and Brad Ziegler were great last season, and now added towards bunch are Brian Fuentes and Grant Balfour, both which experienced amazing seasons over the course of will establish couple of years. Sure, these a lot more moves that didn't arise on the radar the particular course with the offseason, but they're big moves that should help the A's nail down more games late on. The Marlins were the underdogs in order to the media surrounding both teams. What number of powerhouse stories do you read on Sportsline, ESPN or mlb about the Marlins? What number of times are you read when thinking about the fact that despite the pedigree of this Amazing Braves, the Marlins have not just won 2 more championships in you will develop 10 years, but even as recent as last year, young team and all, were merely one game behind the Braves. Betting from the Underdog could be a superb to win huge stages of cash. 해외축구중계 should help multiply dollars extremely fast if you are the right picks. Surgical treatment will only bet on top of the underdog in order to the huge payout which comes with it all.

One on the mistakes people often make is always betting on his or her favorite without calculating wherever you go. There is nothing wrong with betting on the favorite, however, you must consider many other factors, just like the previous game performances and the current studies. You should be doing getting some homework and statistical comparison before betting blindly at the favorite group. This could lead to letdown. Second Baseman: Philadelphia's Chase Utley (.299, 9 HR, 43 RBI) has been a rock for the Phillies offensively, especially with last years MVP Ryan Howard missing time with injuries. Fan favorite Craig Biggio (.230, 3 HR, 16 RBI) is getting plenty of support throughout the Astros, since he chases 3,000 hits this season, but doesn't have near the numbers to overtake Utley. Florida's Dan Uggla (.265, 11 HR, 33 RBI) is enjoying some kind of sophomore campaign, leading all second baseman with 11 dingers who has scored 42 runs. 14. Cincinnati Reds (27-26) - The Cincinnati Reds have hit a major bump inside road, entering Sunday night's game, experienced won just two of nine games on their road time. The Reds are just one game above.500 on the season and several.5 games behind the first place St. Louis Cardinals. Cincinnati has been good offensively, as they lead the league in runs, thus near methods to use in batting average. Jay Bruce has provided the power source for the Reds, leading the NL in homeruns. Cincinnati start a big three game series this Milwaukee Brewers on From monday. MLB dog clothes offer new fresh way compliment your team but why stop a lot of? You can also buy matching dog collars and leashes to help pull the together. You're able to choose between regular styled collars and bandana collars with the team's symbol. Choose the one that suits your pet the best or collect both styles for a refreshing change of up. This way, your pup will have more variety and can turn his attire around for other occasions.

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popentertainment-moviereviews · 2 years

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THE NORTHMAN (2022)

Starring Alexander Skarsgård, Nicole Kidman, Claes Bang, Anya Taylor-Joy, Ethan Hawke, Björk, Willem Dafoe, Gustav Lindh, Elliott Rose, Eldar Skar, Phill Martin, Ingvar Eggert Sigurðsson, Olwen Fouéré, Kate Dickie, Ian Whyte, Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson, Magne Osnes, Ralph Ineson, Tadhg Murphy, Ian Gerard Whyte, Doa Barney, Katie Pattinson and Murray McArthur.

Screenplay by Sjón & Robert Eggers.

Directed by Robert Eggers.

Distributed by Focus Features. 137 minutes. Rated R.

Through Actor Alexander Skarsgård's Eyes, Director Robert Eggers' "The Northman" Explores A Violent Period in Early European History

While Iceland might have inspired The Northman, Ireland provided much of the actual landscape pictured in director Robert Eggers' decidedly eccentric third release. There was a further connection to Eire, as well. Nearly a thousand years ago, Vikings had invaded the island, so their brutal culture had an impact on the inhabitants back then who were brutal enough on their own. Nonetheless, Iceland's dramatic atmospherics of volcanoes and a dark, brooding environment became a unique character in this film.

Co-written by Eggers and Icelandic author/poet Sjón, this epic historical drama – based on the legend of Amleth – provided source material for Shakespeare's Hamlet. It stars Alexander Skarsgård (who also co-produced). Nicole Kidman, Claes Bang, Anya Taylor-Joy, Ethan Hawke, Björk and Willem Dafoe rounded out the veteran cast.

Skarsgård had been wanting to make a Viking film for a while. Born in Stockholm on August 25th, 1976, the Swedish actor began at seven but quit at 13. After serving in the Swedish military, Skarsgård landed in the American comedy Zoolander. In 2008, he joined the miniseries Generation Kill but his real breakthrough came when he portrayed vampire Eric Northman in the television series True Blood (2008–2014). After appearing in such films as 2011's Melancholia, Battleship and The Legend of Tarzan, Skarsgård starred in the drama series Big Little Lies (2017–2019). That earned him a Primetime Emmy Award, a Golden Globe Award, a Critics' Choice Television Award and a Screen Actors Guild Award. From 2019 to 2022, he appeared in the films Long Shot and Godzilla vs. Kong. He also played Randall Flagg in the miniseries The Stand (2020–2021) and guest-starred in the series Succession.

After the two met to discuss possible collaborations, the pair decided to make the film Eggers' third project. Eggers began his career as a New York theatre designer and director before transitioning into film work. Born July 7, 1983, the film director, screenwriter, and production designer became known for his acclaimed supernatural horror films, 2015's The Witch (which starred Anya Taylor-Joy) and 2019's The Lighthouse.

Much of the cast joined in 2019 and filming took place throughout Ireland between August and December 2020 on a $70–90 million budget. Its world premiere was in Stockholm's Rigoletto Cinema on March 28, 2022 and began a global theatrical release schedule throughout April culminating in the United States on April 22. Having already grossed over $23 million worldwide, it received critical acclaim, with praise aimed at its direction, production values, and the performances.

Nonetheless, for all the vaunted visual eccentricities found in Egger's earlier two films, this taut feature provides a mixed bag of hyper-dramatic moments, with almost parodic touches of a Marvel Superhero film and some weird mystical flourishes. While Egger's visual intensity drives the movie, it lacks the richer character development and plot elements that would have made it much more than just an artistic Conan the Barbarian-like savage tale.

Set in A.D. 895, The Northman follows Viking prince Amleth on a quest to avenge his murdered father, King Aurvandill War-Raven (Hawke). After having returned from his overseas conquests, the king reunites with Queen Gudrún (Kidman) and the prince – his son and heir – upon return to his kingdom on the island of Hrafnsey. The two participate in a spiritual ceremony overseen by Aurvandill's jester, Heimir (Dafoe). The next morning, Aurvandill's brother Fjölnir (Bang) and his masked warriors ambush and assassinate the king. After seeing his village massacred and his mother taken away screaming by his uncle, the young Amleth flees by boat swearing revenge for his slaughtered parent, to save his mother and kill Fjölnir.

Life is hard, cold and unembellished by much art or pleasantries except for orgiastic rituals and torturous tests of strength and endurance amidst the sheer force of 10th century Iceland. Like The Last Samurai or Dances With Wolves, this film offers a unique look into the native life of a Viking. Unfortunately, that cultural exploration is underplayed in exchange for mystical machinations and intensely bloody battles.

After the assassination, 10 years pass and Amleth has been raised as an old Norse "berserker," attacking settlements throughout Europe – even as far away as the land of Rus. The now-biff battler sneaks aboard a slave ship heading to Iceland. Posing as a slave, he encounters Slavic Olga (Taylor-Joy), who claims to be a sorceress now enslaved. Upon arrival, everyone is taken to the farm that's now Fjölnir's, having lost his kingdom years ago. There it is revealed that beautiful Gudrún, now Fjölnir's wife, has borne him a son, Gunnar (Elliot Rose).

Through various plot twists (Amleth learns that his mother hated her first husband since she was a captured slave whom he raped), Amleth and Olga (now pregnant with his twins) keep working towards Fjölnir's demise, killing off his tribe and bloodline. Ultimately, Amleth frees the slaves, who kill most of Fjölnir's men, while Gudrún and then, Gunnar, are stabbed to death. Fjölnir discovers the bodies and schedules a final battle with Amleth at the Gates of Hel – the volcano Hekla. At the lava-spewing peak, they thrash at each other in a fierce sword fight. Fjölnir is decapitated, but Amleth is fatally stabbed through the heart at the same time. As he dies, Amleth has a future vision of Olga embracing their twin children. He seemingly ascends to Valhalla while shedding his first tear since his father's murder.

All is well and good, passionate and powerful. But so much of what might have been an insightful exploration of Viking life – especially while the young prince was growing up under their tutelage – is sacrificed for battle, blood and gore. I'm glad to have gone off to the North but I was left a bit cold from the arduous experience.

Brad Balfour

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#The Northman #2022 #Movie Reviews #Alexander Skarsgard #Brad Balfour

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popentertainment-interviews · 7 months

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Gareth Edwards

Dynamic Sci-Fi Director Envisions an Artificial Intelligence-infused World Decades From Now in His Latest Film The Creator

by Brad Balfour

Employing actors with global reputations and locations all over the world, master sci-fi film director Gareth James Edwards has now put out The Creator. The film considers the effects of the Artificial Intelligence revolution in technology some 40 years from now. It stands the Terminator premise on its head and drives a whole re-think on the supposed “menace” of AI.

As if it’s a metaphor for the Vietnam war as much as anything else, future America and its allies are in a conflict between the human race and the forces of artificial intelligence which have taken root in many Southeast and Far-East Asian countries. While AI-enhanced androids have merged with the general human population there, the USA has prohibited them and is committed to destroying Asia and its robotic allies.

Entering the mix is Joshua (John David Washington), a hardened ex-special forces agent grieving the disappearance of his wife Maya (Gemma Chan), one of the leaders of the Asian-AI community and resistance. After having been undercover among the AI community — where he met and wed Maya, Joshua had reluctantly been removed from the area. He had then been recruited to return and hunt down the Creator, the elusive advanced AI designer/programmer who has developed a mysterious weapon with the power to end the war and destroy Nomad, the American super weapon — a computer-enhanced airborne battleship. Ironically, it depends on sophisticated computer technology to fight its anti-AI war. Joshua and his team of elite operatives venture into enemy territory, invading the heart of AI-occupied territory to find and destroy Nirmata — an AI in the form of a young child.

Born on June 1, 1975, in Nuneaton, Warwickshire, the young Edwards admired movies such as the original 1977 classic Star Wars and went on to pursue a film career. The Welshman even cites George Lucas and Steven Spielberg as his biggest influences. He got his start in special visual effects, working on shows that aired on networks such as PBS, BBC and the Discovery Channel. In 2008, he entered the Sci-Fi-London 48-hour film challenge, where a movie had to be created from start-to-finish in just two days (which he won). Then he wrote and directed Monsters, his first full-length feature, which was shot in only three weeks. Edwards personally created the film’s special effects by using off-the-shelf equipment. Aside from its two main actors (real-life couple Scoot McNairy and Whitney Able), the crew consisted of just five people. The $500,000 thriller received a riotous reception and was released to great success.

The impact of Monsters resulted in Edwards becoming an alt-sci-fi movie-making star. With offers from major studios, Warner Bros. tapped him to direct an English-language reboot of the 1954 Japanese classic Gojira. His Godzilla re-visioning garnered mixed reviews but did tremendous box office. Following its success, producer Kathleen Kennedy had Edwards helm Rogue One: A Star Wars Story — a Star Wars spin-off — for Lucasfilm Limited. The film boasted a cast including Felicity Jones, Donnie Yen, Mads Mikkelsen and James Earl Jones among others.

Such an ensemble anchors this film as well. And while its story (co-written by Chris Weitz) doesn’t offer much of an innovative leap in a sci-fi narrative, it does have a spectacular view of an AI-infused future. The following Q&A is drawn from an appearance Gareth Edwards made shortly before the film’s release this week.

This is your fourth feature — and your fourth science fiction production as well. What is it about this genre that you just keep coming back to it?

Are there other genres…? I heard about this, films without robots in them and stuff. I think the best science fiction is a blend of genres. With my first film, I saw it as a love story meets science fiction. My second film, Godzilla, was like a disaster movie meets science fiction. Star Wars is probably a war movie meets science fiction. That’s a really good point because science fiction is at its best when it holds a mirror up to us. That definitely happens here. How did this come about? When and where did the inspiration hit you for The Creator? It was 7:32 p.m. on a Tuesday. There were numerous things that happened. I guess the most obvious one was after we had just finished Rogue One. My girlfriend — her family lives in Iowa — and I drove across America to go visit. As we were driving through the Midwest, there’s all sorts of farmlands with tall grass. I was just looking out the window. I had my headphones on and wasn’t trying to think of an idea for a film, but I was getting a little bit inspired. I just saw this factory in the middle of the tall grass. I remember it having a Japanese logo on it and I was thinking, “I wonder what they are making there?” Then I just started thinking — because that’s the way I am — my tendencies, it was like, “Probably robots, right?” Then I was thinking, “Okay, imagine you were a robot built in a factory. Then for the first time, you step outside into the field and look around and see the sky. I wonder what that would be like.” It felt like a really good moment in a movie, but I didn’t know what that movie was, and I threw it away. Suddenly he tapped me on the shoulder and went, “Oh, it could be this,” and these ideas started coming. By the time we pulled up to the house, I had the whole movie mapped out in my head, which never happens normally. I was like, “That’s a good sign. Maybe this might be my next thing.” It’s an original concept that you’re working with, how did you get New Regency on board as a producer?

I need to shout out to New Regency as you probably noticed in cinema recently, there’s very few original films being made. That’s because everyone’s gotten very gun shy with the franchises and IPs getting regurgitated a bit. Hats off to Yuri and Michael from New Regency for having the balls to take a big swing and do something like this. Some of my closest friends are concept artists and that’s probably because I know I need them to make my next film, so I asked all my friends… “Could you do some artwork for this idea I’ve got, I’ll pay you” and I started building up a library of imagery. Basically, I had about 50 images when I went into it. I kept it very secret because I didn’t want to put any pressure on it. I just went to New Regency and laid out all the artwork and talked them through the idea beat by beat — which I hate doing. I hate being a car salesman. I just wanted to hit play on the movie. That’s my favorite thing to do. Trying to sell it and speak with a microphone, it’s not my fun thing. You look at all that imagery and it was incredibly ambitious. The natural reaction was, “This is a $300 million film. We’d love to do it, but we can’t really do it.” I was like, “We’re going to do it very differently. We’ll film it with this very small crew and essentially reverse engineer the whole movie.” In theory, what you normally do is have all this design work and you have to build sets in a studio against a green screen — and it’ll cost a fortune. We were like, “We will shoot the movie in real locations in real parts of the world that look closest to what these images are. Then afterwards, when the film’s fully edited, we’ll get the production designer, James Klein, and other concept artists to paint over those frames and put the sci-fi on top.” Everyone was like, “It sounds great.” But basically, we had to really prove it to them. How many locations did you shoot?

On some of the other films I’ve done, I’m so lucky when I get away from the studio and go to a proper location a handful of times. On this one, we went to like 80 locations. We didn’t really use any green screen. There was occasionally a little bit here and there, but very little. If you do the math, and keep the crew small enough, the theory was that the cost of building a set — which is typically 200 grand apparently — you can fly everyone anywhere in the world for that kind of money. It was like, “Let’s keep the crew small and let’s go to these amazing locations.” We went to Nepal, the Himalayas, to active volcanoes in Indonesia, temples in Cambodia, Thailand, Vietnam, and Tokyo for mega city stuff. Then we did a bit in Pinewood [Studios in London] using their stage and screen — everyone knows it from “The Mandalorian” — but the kind of special non green screen led screen environment.

Your antagonist in this feature is artificial intelligence — AI — but could your timing be any better?

The trick with AI is to get time in that sweet spot window where it’s before the Robo-apocalypse and not after — which I think is in November or maybe December. I think we got really lucky. The joke would be that when you write a film, especially a science fiction film, you avoid putting a date on it. I didn’t want to write a date for the movie because even Kubrick got it wrong. I was like, “Don’t write a date and then at some point, you have to. I did some math and picked 2070. Now I feel like an idiot because I should have gone for 2023. Everything that’s unfolded in the last few months or year is kind of scarily weird, especially when we’re showing it now. When we first pitched the movie to the studio, this idea of war with AI, everyone wanted to know the back story. Well, hang on. Why would we be at war with AI? It’s like, they’ve been banned because it kind of went wrong. But why would you ban AI? “It’s going to be great and blah, blah, blah.” It was all these sorts of ideas that you have to set up, that maybe humanity would reject this thing and not be cool about it. The way it’s played out, like the setup of our movie, is pretty much as it’s been for the last few months.

Set it up for us as the first scene begins?

To understand what’s going on, I would say, essentially, something terrible happened in America and AI got banned — it’s completely banned in the West. But in Asia, there was no such problem, so the world is divided in two camps. They carried on developing it until it was nearly human-like. So there’s this war going on over there — to wipe out AI [in Asia]. The person everybody’s after is called Nirmata — Public enemy #1 — which is basically a Nepalese word for the creator. From the Western perspective, this is the Osama bin Laden of our story. But from the Asian and AI perspective, this is like God.

When it came to prep and research, consulting with scientists and technological advisors, were you able to really dive into that?

That’s all I did for years. It was a bit like researching jet packs because I started writing this, I guess it was like in 2018, and it did feel back then like this was 30 years away. But when we were filming, we were in the middle of the jungle and driving to places when I got a text on my phone. There was that whole whistleblower account from one of the big tech companies thinking that AI had become self-aware. It really wasn’t on my radar back then in terms of being a reality, it was just something that [raised the question of] whether it’s a good or bad thing. In one way, humanity might get wiped out, but on the other hand, I get to make my dream film. So everyone wins.

What were some of the tools, some of the new innovations, when it came to cutting-edge technology, that you were able to take advantage of that didn’t exist when Rogue One came out in 2016?

Camera and film making technology has come a long way in the last few years. I needed the actors and me to have total freedom on set. Something we did on this film that was really important was that I wanted it to feel as realistic as possible. We would always be able to shoot in 360 degrees but the problem working against you when you try to do that in a film is [that] you have lights like we have here. The second you want to move the camera, you suddenly see the lights and you spend 20 minutes moving them. It takes forever to shoot a scene. The way we worked there was with really sensitive camera equipment in terms of how we could use the lights. They’re very lightweight. We’re all familiar with how lights have become. We thought we could set it up — you have a boom operator holding a pole with the microphone on. Why can’t you have a person holding a pole with a light on it? We had a best-boy type running around holding the light by hand. If the actor suddenly got up and did something — went over here and suddenly there was a better shot — I could move and suddenly the lighting could really be readjusted. What would normally take like 10 minutes to change was taking four seconds. We would do 25-minute takes where we’d play out the scene three or four times. It just gave everything, this atmosphere, this sort of naturalism and realism that I really wanted to get where it wasn’t so prescribed. Like you’re not putting marks on the ground and saying stand there. It wasn’t that kind of movie.

What about the casting process, particularly with leads John David Washington, Gemma Chan and Ken Watanabe?

With John David, we were casting the film during the pandemic. It was really hard to meet anybody but fortunately he lived in LA, and I just heard through his agent that he’d meet me any time I wanted to go for a meal. So I went to meet him, and he walked in — it’s the pandemic. He’s got his mask on, a Star Wars mask, like with the Star Wars logo on it. I initially thought, “He’s doing this because of “Rogue One.” He sat down and admitted that he’s a massive Star Wars fan and he’s like, “I’ve been wearing this mask every single day for like a year or whatever. It’s been for the whole pandemic. I thought about not wearing it to this meeting, but then it felt false, so I thought it’d be like a good ice breaker.” We hit it off straight away. I’d worked with Ken [Watanabe] before — he’s the only actor I’ve worked with twice. I don’t know if that says something about me. I always want to do something new and so for the longest time, I didn’t think about Ken for this role. The second he turned up on set, I felt like such an idiot, obviously it was supposed to be Ken from the beginning. Every time we held the camera up and Ken’s in the shot, it felt like this strange hybrid — it’s meeting Star Wars or something, which was exactly what we were going for. He gave us goosebumps. There’s something about that guy. He’s just got this face that, I think, is the reason he’s so successful internationally; it’s not really about what he says. He can convey so much with just his looks; he’s so good. How did you find the right Alphie? What was that casting process?

We basically did an open casting call around the world and I think we got hundreds of videos. Thankfully, I didn’t have to watch all of them. They sent me like the top 70 or something and then we met. I went to meet, I forget, about ten kids. The first one was Madeleine who plays Alfie. She came in and did this scene. We were all nearly in tears at the end. I thought to myself “This is weird and phenomenal. Maybe the mum was just brilliant at prepping her to get really upset just before she came in. There was some little trick going on. So we chatted a bit and we did some other scenes and then right at the end — I was a bit cruel — I was like, “Could we just try one more thing?” I just wanted to see if it was repeatable. “Can we do another scene?” I explained a different scene and we just improvised it and she was even more heartbreaking. I don’t know what we would have done if we hadn’t found the right kid. We got really lucky. I’m glad I live in the universe where that happened because the movie lives or dies [with her]. I hate movies about little kids because they can be so annoying and that was my biggest fear — are we going to do one of these really annoying kid movies? It was the biggest relief because she’s beyond her years. She was really something.

How was it working with John David Washington and vice versa?

She’s quite “method.” I can tell she does “method” a lot because we only knew each other during the filmmaking process. But it’s like she kept everybody at arm’s reach. I was allowed in a little bit. But she and John David were inseparable. He became a brother or father figure. I’m not sure which. What’s amazing is that I thought I was going to have to trigger it. So when we deal with sex and all the scenes, I need this to be like a documentary so we can pull this performance out of this, this girl without kind of like her having to act and she could act her pants off, you know what I mean? She was amazing at it. it was a director’s dream; you could just tell her what Alfie was thinking and this amazing performance came out. I’d look at the other actors and[think] be why can’t you be like this — what’s your problem?

Talk about filming those combat scenes and how did they differ from the ones in Rogue One? Obviously, we went to the Maldives and that wasn’t bad. We went to shoot real exterior locations. Everything in this movie is the closest thing we could do to be what the artwork suggested it should be. I glimpsed it a little bit when we were in Thailand. We needed to find a really technologically advanced factory. We looked everywhere. There were car manufacturing plants that were nervous about us filming but eventually we found a particle accelerator and it’s one of the most advanced, probably in the whole of Thailand. We were like, “Please, please, please, could you let us film.” It looked amazing. It had that whole circular thing going on. We went to visit, and they were like, “There’s no way you’re going to be allowed to film here.” They asked what do you want to do? Why are there people with guns shooting and explosions? This is like a multi-multimillion dollar facility with all these leading cutting-edge scientists. Then, at the very last minute, someone was like, “What filmmaker is doing this?” They were like, “It’s this guy from the States or whatever. He lives over there, but he’s English. And they go, “What films has he done?” They went, “He did this Star Wars film called “Rogue One.” And then, they were like, “Can we be in it?” We were like, “Sure, whatever. Everybody was in those scenes, with everyone running around. They’re nuclear physicists — they really are — and they were amazing.

You did a lot of location work. Isn’t that right?

We went into real locations. We wanted it to feel like we were making a student film to some extent. But it got to the point where like that beach scene where Gemma’s running and there’s all that crossfire. It was the beginning of when the pandemic restrictions were lifted, and Thailand was opening up to tourists. They’re like, “You can film on this beach, but you can’t close it. so it’s like, “How are we going to do that scene where there’s tourists there. I don’t know what happens normally in Thailand at night on these beaches. But with the stuff that’s in the movie and the trailer, we didn’t close the beach. If you look carefully in the background, you can see cars and tourists, but one person came over and went, “What are you doing?” It was just the four of us with a camera running around so it didn’t look like this big, massive movie. The goal hopefully was that it all ends up on the screen. We tried to be very efficient about it.

So further along in the film, what do we see?

Further on the journey, we have Joshua and now Alfie. The best way to say it is that Joshua infiltrated the AI village with the insurgents and guerrillas. Basically they’ve abducted the child. As this is happening, it seems that the Americans have also arrived. Essentially these rockets ascend into the air, and they smoke out the whole village and then it all unfolds from there.

What would you list as your cinematic influences for The Creator? What movies should we see as companion pieces?

Since my first film, I put up posters in the edit suite of movies that had inspired the film I was doing. There are some really obvious ones you’d probably predict. But there’s a film called Baraka. The cinematographer from that film went on and directed another film called Samsara, which is one of the greatest movies ever made. Lone Wolf and Cub is a Japanese manga series. There’s a whole bunch of films called Sword of Vengeance. The really obvious ones are Apocalypse Now and Blade Runner. In terms of this film’s dynamic, maybe there’s a little bit of Rain Man [in it]. It’s a journey of someone normal and someone who’s a little bit special. And there’s Paper Moon, with its dynamics.

What was your inspiration behind the robot designs? And talk about working with your costume designer for the entire film.

A lot of the costumes were done by the WETA Workshop in New Zealand. Peter Jackson and ILM [Industrial Light and Magic] did all the visual effects — or a lot of them — plus some by the vendors around the world. We tried to summarize the design and aesthetic of the movie as a bit retro futuristic. Imagine if Apple Mac hadn’t won the tech war and Sony Walkman had. everything has this sort of ’90s/ ‘80s kind of Walkman/Nintendo thing. We looked at all the product designs from that era and riffed off little pieces and tried to put them into the robots. The tricky thing with designing robot heads was to pull from sources. We did a whole pass at one point where we took insect heads and then tried to make it as if that insect had been made by Sony — like the praying mantis — and changed it into product design. Then we took products and tried to turn them into organic looking heads. We took things like film projectors, vacuum cleaners — things like that — and then just messed around. I just kept experimenting; it was like evolution in real life, like DNA getting merged and trying to create something better than the previous thing.

Being a big science fiction director, who are some of the directors and writers that you looked up to and get inspiration from?

There are the obvious people — Steven Spielberg, James Cameron, Ridley Scott. It’s the high benchmark of essentially what we were trying to do. I’m not saying we got anywhere close to achieving it, but the goal of the movie was to try and go back to that style and type of film that we grew up loving, like the film was shot on 1970s anamorphic lenses and things like this. Actually, I hate writing. It’s like doing homework. The worst thing in the world is having to write a screenplay. The only way I can bring myself to do it is to lock myself in somewhere nice. I’m not allowed to leave until I’ve finished. I’ll stay there for like a month or something. I went to Thailand, to the exact place where the beach ended. I didn’t realize I was getting inspired for the movie. I just picked this nice resort, and it was like a recurring theme like in the Maldives and now this beach resort in town. Whilst I was there, a filmmaker friend who was in Vietnam said, “Come over and we’ll just do a little trip.” I went there and you can’t just go around that country and not think of all the imagery from films like Apocalypse Now. Now I can, but I was writing this science fiction film. So everything I was looking at in my mind was like robots, spaceships and things. You’d see Buddhist monks going to temples and I’d picture a robot Buddhist monk. I just spent the whole time going, “Oh my God, what is this movie?” This feels like there was something so appealing about it, this mix of Blade Runner meets Apocalypse Now.

What was the biggest challenge filming this? I wouldn’t say it was a particular thing; it was more just the duration of it. We started filming in January 2022 and we finished in June. We were there for six months and it was like nonstop 40-degree heat, people were dying every day. it was a dream looking back at it, to get to do that. But there was a point where you wanted to collapse and you felt like, “He’s only done seven days of filming and there’s still all that is still left. The first cut of this movie was five hours long and we had so much great, cool material but everything that’s in this film is all the best stuff. The editing process was basically like a game of Jenga where we would pull things out and see if we missed it or it fell apart. We had it packed by the end through the editors, but we finally got it down to two hours. It’s like the old adage “less is more” most of the time.

What are the highest and best values of humanity that you hope this movie ultimately illustrates? I hope some sort of empathy for others [is there]. That’s a strong value which is very important. When this film began, I obviously didn’t know AI was going to do what it ended up doing this last year. AI was really in the fairy tale of this story. We want to get rid of people who are different from us. All kinds of fascinating things start to happen while you write that script. You start to think, “Are they real? How would you know and what if you didn’t like what they were doing? Can you turn them off? What if they didn’t want to be turned off?” This sort of stuff started to play out which became as strong as the premise and that’s what I’m most proud of.

Two words for you: Hans Zimmer.

Everyone’s iPhone tells you the last 25 most played tracks or something like that. I looked at [mine] out of curiosity and I think 14 were Hans Zimmer tracks. I was like, “I don’t know how we get composer Han Zimmer, but we have to try.” Joe Walker, editor of Rogue One, assembled the film. He had worked with Hans a lot and was like, “I’ll talk to him.” We ended up in this strange situation where I had to call Hans whilst in the middle of nowhere; we were going to meet the head of the military in Thailand to get permission to film the Black Hawks for one of those sequences. It was this massive deal meeting that took months and months to organize. It happened to be the same moment that Hans was available to do a Zoom. We had to pull off the road. It was like a hotel in the middle of nowhere and they had Wi-Fi. I go in there and get Hans and the worst thing in the world is that they said you’ve got to leave in 30 minutes. You can’t stay because the whole military is waiting for us over here. I was looking at this clock and Hans started telling his anecdotes about The Dark Knight and Terrence Malick. All my life I’ve wanted to talk to him about these films and I have to go,” I’m really sorry, Hans, I have to leave now.” It was so against every bone in my body to come away from that.

Talk about working with Oscar-winning cinematographer Greig Fraser.

I obviously worked with Greig on Rogue One. Greig had to make this work as well. We were totally on the same page and Greig’s very rebellious. and despite how it might look because he’s, you know, doing his big movies. But we’re both during that, like the build up to this film, I got to go around one of these virtual reality studios where they had this poster on the wall as to how you make a movie. it was every part of the process, and I was just looking at it going, “What a strange thing to have. Why are they doing it? Why have they got this poster?” The guy who ran the thing came up to me and went, “Oh, I see you looking at the poster — that’s 100 years old.” When I looked at it, I realized the typography was like 100 years old. We haven’t changed how films are made in 100 years. We still do it the same way. With all these new digital tools and technology, there are other ways to make films. People like Greig and I really want to do things differently because that’s how you make a different type of movie. The process is as important as the screenplay to some extent.

Let’s talk about the opportunity and power of science fiction to drive social commentary and reflection.

I like science fiction because there’s a chance to sneak ideas under the radar. My favorite TV show growing up was The Twilight Zone which was in the ’50s and ’60s. Rod Serling, who wrote a lot of those shows, had said the reason he did science fiction was because he could get out from under the radar of the censors and say things you’re not normally allowed to say out loud. If you start to type and work out a film, and you go, “I want to make a film about this. It’s got to have this social commentary to it”— it will be a rubbish film. If you get attracted to an idea, there’s something primal about it that pulls you in. There’s something that needs to be said about this subject matter but about halfway through making or writing a film is when you start to realize what that thing is. It’s like a child who tells you what they want to be when they grow up. You learn what it is and then you try to help it along. Science fiction does it the best because we all go through our lives with certain beliefs, and they never really get tested. You do everything you’re supposed to do but science fiction says, what if the world had this different thing about it. Would your little idea still work, and you hit against the wall? The thing you used to think was true starts to be false. And you begin to question things. I love that kind of storytelling. I hope our film does a little bit of that.

[For fans of this film or any genre film, go to Big Apple Comic Con‘s Christmas Con, taking place in the New Yorker Hotel this December 16th, 2023, www.BigAppleCC.com. There are many opportunities to steep yourself in sci-fi and other graphic story collectibles. Get posters and other collateral available from The Creator and many others as your stocking stuffers.]

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